The effects of growing up in the social media era- Naomi- RPHS

The effects of growing up in the social media era- Naomi- RPHS

The effects of growing up in the social media era- Naomi- RPHS

I don’t know about most people but I’ve noticed numerous bad things about what some might call the “privilege” of growing up in the social media era. While I carelessly take advantage of its benefits; like being able to contact people quicker, contact people in different/ further areas more conveniently and having easier access to news from different ideological backgrounds- which I’d like to think has resulted in a much more opinionated and independent generation. I cannot help but feel like social media has created a plethora of problems that might quiet possibly outweigh the benefits.

It’s hard to argue against the fact that growing up in a social media bombarded generation, leads to anxiety-filled children. How could it not?

People around my age have easy access to an insight into people’s lives with a few taps of the fingers - we don’t even have to push buttons anymore, that’s how little effort is required. As an obvious consequence, teens are more predisposed to have anxiety; if they can easily get access to someone else’s life through their Instagram and Snapchat, others can do the same to them. In this day and age, you cannot help but feel like you’re being watched. Though you have no one to blame but yourself, it’s difficult to resist posting most of your life on social media since everyone else is doing it.

To worsen matters, trends like “cancel culture” have become wildly popular recently but even prior to that social media have been laced with mean, judgemental comments. How are we as teens supposed to grow up not hating ourselves and being too hard on ourselves if we are only ever exposed to hateful things?

I am not writing this in an attempt to get people to swear off social media platforms but rather to share more love rather than hate on these platforms. Perhaps take a moment to make sure you share more love than hate on these platforms. Brighten up someone’s day instead of putting a rain cloud over their entire week. Heck, why not spread the love outside of your screens and into real life. In times of uncertainty, like this one, challenge yourself to be the light in someone’s day as opposed to letting fear turn you into a predator.

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